Case Number 27343: Small Claims Court

Ravenous (Blu-ray)

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All Rise...

Judge Patrick Naugle just lost his appetite.

The Charge

You are what you eat.

The Case

It's the Mexican-American war and Second Lieutenant Boyd (Guy Pearce, Iron Man 3) has played dead to avoid
being killed in battle while the rest of his battalion is massacred. Boyd hides
in a wagon of dead bodies but, during a brief moment of bravery, he captures the
Mexican unit after being taken into their headquarters with the rest of the
dead. At first commended and promoted to captain, Boyd is exiled to the remote
Fort Spencer in the Sierra Nevada mountain range when his commanding officer
(John Spencer, The Negotiator)
learns of his cowardice. It's at this outpost that Boyd meets a group of ragtag
military misfits led by Col. Hart (Jeffrey Jones, Beetlejuice). Before Boyd can
settle in a man named Colqhoun (Robert Carlyle, Trainspotting) stumbles in from the
cold, malnourished and almost frozen. After being nursed back to health,
Colqhoun tells the story of his wagon train led party becoming lost in the woods
and eventually succumbing to cannibalism. The Fort Spencer crew takes it upon
themselves to investigate Colqhoun's story in the woods which leads to some
unexpected and terrifying revelations.

I have often said that I'm willing to try any meat that's put in front of
me. I've tried frog legs, snails, rabbit, and even bull testicles. The more
exotic or odd the meat, the better. I once even noted to some friends that I'm
curious what human flesh tastes like. I had to quickly explain that I don't have
a real interest in trying human flesh, just that I've wondered what it
tastes like and, if put in terrible compromising circumstances, I'd be willing
to try it. For some inexplicable reason, I'm not friends with those people
anymore.

There have, of course, been many movies about people eating human flesh.
From The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
to Sweeney Todd, movies about
cannibalism often revel in the gore and grizzle of the actual killing and
cooking (the exception being the drama Alive,
which was based on a true story). Then there are movies like Ravenous
which seem to deal with the topic in a dramatic, comedic, and horrific fashion.
There are moments where it feels like the Ed Gein story on laughing gas. I've
never seen a movie quite like this, which takes place in pioneer times, has
overtones of the vampire tale, and the sets the stage with dark humor and a
music score that seems to have been imported from another movie.

Ravenous is filled with an assortment of weird characters, which only
adds the film's oddball charm. Guy Pearce almost gets the short end of the stick
as the straight man to the rest of the cast's lunacy. Pearce plays Boyd with
equal parts hero and coward, often mixing the two traits at a moment's notice.
Robert Carlyle—an actor with some of the wildest eyes in
Hollywood—is deliciously devious Colonel Ives, the film's main antagonist.
Ives starts off as a weak-willed survivor show slowly transforms into a force to
be reckoned with. The supporting cast is made up of a grand cast of character
actors including Jeremy Davies (Saving Private Ryan) as a the
religious but easily spooked Pvt. Toffler, Neal McDonough (Captain America: The First Avenger)
as the tough-as-nails Pvt. Reich, and David Arquette as…well, technically
Arquette plays a character, but that character is mostly just an 1800s version
of David Arquette. Rounding out the cast is the irreplaceable Jeffrey Jones as
the kindly Col. Hunt, whose performance hints at a man who knows more than he's
letting on.

So just what is Ravenous? Is it a horror movie? Historical drama?
Black comedy? I suppose, in its own demented way, Ravenous is a little
bit of all of those. The production history was fraught with difficulty, with
the film's original director replaced by the late Antonia Bird (Mad Love). Bird took the screenplay for
Ravenous and jacked up the weirdness factor by ten. While some of the
actors play their roles straight (Pearce), others seem to be relish taking their
characters into dark and often menacing avenues (Carlyle). The screenplay by Ted
Griffin (Matchstick Men) commands a
weird vibe between pitch back comedy, gory set pieces, and a rumination on what
it means to eat another man's soul (inspired in part by the true life story of
the Donner party). Interestingly, by the end, the film seems to wander into
almost supernatural territory as characters become more or less super-strong due
to their ingestion of human flesh. It's an interesting enough idea, but the
filmmakers never follow through with what it truly means to gain such feats of
strength.

Finally, I have to make mention of the film's offbeat soundtrack by Damon
Albarn and Micheal Nyman (who also created the hauntingly beautiful score for The Piano). The musical score feels almost
experimental in its execution, sometimes jarringly so. There are moments where
the score almost pulls the viewer out of the film because it's so contrasting to
the visuals, then just as quickly puts them back on edge again. Does the music
score work? I think so, but not in any normal kind of way. For any other film
this soundtrack may seem out of place. Considering Ravenous is about 18th
century cannibals, I'm giving it a pass.

Ravenous (Blu-ray) is presented in 2.35:1/1080p high definition
widescreen. This newly minted transfer by Scream Factory is certainly going to
please fans of the film. There are moments when the film takes place in brightly
lit afternoons and others where it's nothing but shadows and darkness. The
colors and black levels are all solid and well defined without any major defects
marring the image. The DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track is an often aggressive mix
that features some nauseating sound effects (especially when characters are
eating their 'dinner') with a pumped up music score by Albarn and Nyman.

Bonus features include an audio commentary from director Antonia Bird and
composer Damon Albarn, a second commentary from screenwriter Ted Griffin and
actor Jeffrey Jones, and a third commentary from actor Robert Carlyle; a music
and effects only isolated track; an interview with Jeffrey Jones; a few deleted
scenes (with optional commentary); a TV spot; photo gallery; and theatrical
trailer for the film.

Ravenous is one exceptionally strange movie. While the parts don't
always work in tandem, the overall effect is an interesting and different
movie-going experience. The performances are a bit all over the map with Robert
Carlyle's deliciously evil performance taking the mutilated cake. If nothing
else, I was never bored during the film's runtime. It's hard to see a major
studio releasing Ravenous on Blu-ray (it lost almost $10 million during
its initial theatrical release), which is why fans will be happy that Scream
Factory picked up the ball and ran with it.